Teachers Change The World

I decided to move to Austin to work in a Gates-funded position in High School Redesign because it appeared to be my shot at changing the world. First job outside of the four walls of the classroom (I can actually get up and go to the bathroom whenever I need to and don't have to wear my keys on a rope around my neck!), in a position that is viewed as influential, rubbing elbows with educational experts from around the country who see AISD as a laboratory to examine changing educational policy and practices in districts around the country.

The Gates Foundation chose High School Redesign as its second major initiative (after investing in developing world health care) to structure American public education around the 4 R's: Rigor, Relationships, Relevance and Results. In the ideal theoretical framework for this change, American public high schools create schools within schools which make education more personalized, every high school student has at least one adult who knows and works with them and their family situation to personalize a fitting educational plan, and all teachers create and deliver curriculum which is culturally relevant and intellectually rigorous enough to engage all students while they are in high school as well as prepare them for the enormous employment opportunities available in the 21st century information economy.

The old-school school model that most of us know from our US High School experience was created during the Industrial period as a factory-inspired system to prepare workers for an industrialized, factory-based economy. That world is not the world we live in anymore, yet our public schools are still preparing students for it, if they have not successful ly transformed to a small school model with advisories and project-based, technology-rich curricula.

Unfortunately, the fourth R, Results, has been purely defined in Texas by No Child Left Behind, and since this is the #1 accountability state in the country in education, the tests drive the rest of the train. People here simply do not think outside of the testing box enough. How can you do High School Redesign when it is bound by tests (that really only test students at an 8th grade level?).

The first consultant I met here, Dr. Al Rogers, 6'6'' African American man as big as a linebacker who had grown up in foster care, kicked ass in college and became an exceptional high school teacher, Principal and Supertintendent of the Sacramento Charter school district and recently started his own business called Great Schools Workshop. He wields a gigantic personality and even bigger belief in changing the world one school, one district at a time. He has a group of friends who are Superintendents in major urban districts around the country who get together periodically to sit on pillows in the livingroom smoking hookah pipes (I want to be a fly on the wall!), talking about how the years and years of school reform efforts they have contributed to and witnessed have not really resulted in lasting change in the schools. And they're still at it.

Why?

So in coming to this inspiring job that Bill has so kindly footed the bill for, I am left with many more questions than answers. I am using this position as a launching ground to help the people I can. Teachers at our new immigrant student high school, International High School, decided they wanted to buy iPods for every classroom and use them to teach students how to create podcasts about their immigration stories. I helped them get the grant they needed and now they are using the iPods. In fact, I will get to see a model lesson using the iPods tomorrow morning, at their school.

One teacher at the same International High School, Rob Hillhouse, is from Glasgow, Scotland, and has become a friend. He wants to start the first Advanced Placement class at International High School, in Art History, a class most people believe immigrant kids can't handle, yet he is committed to teaching them. Each giant Art History textbook costs $140. At most middle class high schools, parents pay for their child's AP Art History book, no problem. He asked me to help him out and I was able to contact someone I know in SF who is the CEO of a small, private foundation, who is going to review Rob's application and most likely buy him the books for the kids so they can start this class.

AISD's Superintendent, Dr. Pat Forgione, is something of a local celebrity. You see his face all over the city, on magazine covers, billboards, hear his voice on the morning show cracking jokes with the funniest announcers. He won a major state Superintendent award this year. He is the person responsible for this district obtaining the Gates grants and has met most of the expert consultants at various conferences around the country, inviting them to join the innovative effort in Austin. Reading a speech he made in San Francisco at the beginning of AISD's redesign efforts was one of the major factors that influenced me to apply for this job. He is sincere about wanting to change the schools and is definitely a special, magnanimous human being.

Underneath all the hype, he is quite an enigma. He gets it. He is smart. He knows how badly change has to happen. Yet he is also known as an unrealistic proliferator of new initiatives, which ends up overwhelming teachers and administrators to the point that they can hardly keep track of all the programs coming at them (which are each expensive!) long enough to implement them in ways that actually make sense for their students. One of our consultants who works in San Diego, New York, Chicago and Austin has said that in most districts, she worries they're not doing enough, yet in Austin, she worries that we are doing too much.

I am managing two of these district-wide, High School initiatives. One for Secondary English Language Learners, the other for Professional Learning Communities.

I am working with Dr. Joan Talbert from Stanford on Professional Learning Communities. The idea here is that teachers form collaborative groups to get themselves out from behind their isolated classroom desks, figuring everything out on their own, working collaboratively with their peers to create curriculum, assessments and observe one another's teaching to help make instructional improvement. Culturally, schools using Professional Learning Communities become flat structures where decisions and behavioral change are made collectively. Great idea. I am currently going to schools to observe what they have done so far and am seeing effectiveness in many places - at the higher performing schools. The lower performing schools have so much on their plates trying to avoid closure from the state that they don't have time to concentrate on this yet - urgh.

I met someone I see myself being connected to for a long time, Dr. Aida Walqui, the Director of WestEd's Quality Teaching for English Language Learners program, here as well. She is one of our major consultants on the English Language Learner project. She is exceptionally charismatic, the #1 national expert in her field, and one of my favorite people to have a glass of wine with at the end of a long day of training and school observations. Her organization is working with the International High School mentioned above, as well as Lanier High School, which reminds me a lot of Mission, Austin's most ethnically-diverse campus with a strong school leader. With 3 years of concentrated effort, these two high schools will become model campuses for English Language Learner instruction. I have pushed for the district to train more schools as the needs are so high across the city, and we are working on budgeting for this spread of high quality professional development around the district.

It may have already dawned on each of you as it really is common sense, but the biggest thing this job is teaching me is that change is up to individual people. Districts and Gates's can invest all the money in the world into fancy consultants and theories, but individuals have to make sense of the opportunities, have solid visions, leaders have to step up, and have a coherent, sustainable PLAN. Teachers have to know that changing the same old, same old blah worksheet culture that has slid by as teaching for so long cannot be accepted any longer.

And most important, all educators have to believe that EVERY child, no matter where (s)he comes from, what language (s)he speaks, what skills (s)he has when (s)he walks through the classroom door, what their parents have or haven't done, is intelligent and eager to learn more and that it is the teacher's responsibility to find out what will turn that kid on to learning, to not give up, to never take no for an answer. I've been a teacher with challenging students and I know how tough it is to confront some of the kids' situations, but often, that teacher, more than anyone else, has the opportunity to push for change in the life of that child and that really is why we're all here doing these projects, initiatives, etc.

So I hope this didn't bore you to tears or state the obvious too much, just wanted to update you. Please feel free to call or write. I am making new friends here but definitely miss the Bay Area. My family is doing great! Which I have also learned is one of the most important reasons for me to be here.

Our district is starting a compensation plan to pay teachers for extra hours spent outside of the classroom. I will let you know how that goes. If at all interested in teacher pay issues, check out the book Teachers Have it Easy, edited by Dave Eggers and Ninive Calegari, founders of 826 Valencia - must read.

I have been asked to sit on the Board of the Austin version of 826 Valencia, the Austin Bat Cave, and hope to teach a writing class or two, help them with fundraising, and making contact in more AISD high schools.

I know the ideas here are sort of all over the place, but felt like writing and sharing with you.

I will be back in the Bay Area next year, most likely working as an instructional coach/mentor to new teachers, with the New Teacher Center out of UC Santa Cruz.

I want to be in a position to directly impact teacher behavior and attitude towards the profession and kids, and this will be a perfect opportunity to do so.

I miss you all very much - Happy Holidays and please send me a note to let me know how you are...

xo Kiran